Respond Accordingly

I was out today at a Shopping Center getting my nails done and afterwards drove over to Kohl's to return a few items. As I pulled up there was a young woman and a bunch of people crowding around. The woman was standing against the door of the store shouting at someone about something which I couldn't quite make out. But I parked my car and started walking towards the store. And as I did that, I saw a cop car pull up to the store. I walked closer and at that time a cop was taking the young woman and putting her in the car and the woman was yelling at the top of her lungs.

She was telling the cop to let her go. She didn't do anything. He had no right to hold her. He told her she was being arrested. And she just kept yelling, “I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything! He grabbed me first! He had no right putting his hands on me! Let me go! Let me go!” On and on she went. As I was getting ready to enter the store a lady, an employee and another lady started talking to me, and one lady said that she had not seen the whole thing, but apparently the young woman stole something and someone else that was in the store, grabbed her and tried to stop her. The other lady said, "Yes, and you can always tell they stole something because they get loud. And they are the first ones to blame somebody else. But they are always yelling. Mark my words." And the employee agreed and said, "I see it all the time." So I listened for a second as I walked into the store and just proceeded to return my items.

As I walked out the store, I heard the Spirit say that is exactly how the enemy acts when he is caught. He gets loud. He gets belligerent. He gets defensive. And he gets violent. When Jesus was teaching at the synagogue the people were amazed at his teaching, the Bible says. But a man was in the synagogue that had a demon and when it saw Jesus, the Bible says that the evil spirit began shouting at Jesus, saying, Go away, what do we have to do with you (among other things). And Jesus spoke to the demon and the Bible says that after that, it (the demon) threw the man to the floor and then he came out of the man." The demon was belligerent, defensive, he yelled and was violent.

In another instance, the Bible speaks of a father coming to Jesus on behalf of his son, whom he said, "he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water." And after Jesus rebuked his disciples for not having the faith to cast out the demon, He told the man to bring his son to Him and then the Bible says, “Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well." Jesus knew that the reason the boy acted so violently was because there was a demon in him. The father said that the boy would fall into the fire or into the water. That was the evil spirit trying to kill him. (Side note... SICKNESS, of any form, is from the enemy... he comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. Have enough faith to believe that God wants you whole. That’s what Jesus died for and that's the way it should be. I rebuke any form of sickness in your body right now in the name of Jesus and demand it to flee. Come on out in Jesus name!).

God said that whenever an evil spirit is confronted and not allowed to do what it wants to do, that spirit (that demon) is going to respond accordingly. Violent, belligerent, loud, drawing attention to itself. And then God said this, sometimes when we are confronted about things that we know we have done wrong, or are doing wrong, we respond the same way. We get angry. We yell. We deny. We curse (yeah, you do… wishing evil thoughts on a person, is cursing). We may even get violent and slam a door or two. Or want to slap someone. But we act just like that evil spirit. And just as it did not want to be confronted in the Bible, with the woman at Kohl’s, it does not want to be confronted when you are doing something wrong.

As I made my way home and just listened to the Spirit of God speak, the events replayed in my head. I realized that I heard someone say, the young woman slapped somebody. She threw her shoes off somewhere. I saw her as the cop transferred her to another police car... she had no shoes on, her clothes were disarrayed as if she had been fighting. Her hair was all over the place and she just kept yelling, cursing and denying the truth of what everyone else seemed to have seen, but her.

It was enough to make me stop and take note of this picture and realize that sometimes I am looking (and sounding) like that myself. And when I see it, I need to respond with humility, asking our gracious God to forgive me. Quite a humbling experience to know that sometimes if we can admit it, we are "her." And that’s not a good picture.